Late Saturday night, the biggest trade candidate and one of the best pitchers in baseball came off the board, and he’s going to the two-time defending World Series champions. The Los Angeles Dodgers have acquired Tarik Skubal from the Detroit Tigers for three prospects.
Here are the full trade details:
- Dodgers acquire: LHP SP Tarik Skubal
- Tigers acquire: OF Zyhir Hope, RHSP River Ryan, RHSP Brady Smith
The Dodgers are looking to threepeat and the Tigers are, for all intents and purposes, throwing in the towel on their season. Expect righty Casey Mize and second baseman Gleyber Torres, both rentals like Skubal, to move prior to Monday’s deadline. The Dodgers don’t have anything else to address before the deadline, really. Their roster is very well set now.
Tarik Skubal trade winners and losers: Dodgers just keep getting better; MLB scores easy (if faulty) narrative
Dayn Perry
Here now are our grades for Saturday’s Skubal blockbuster.
Los Angeles Dodgers: A
Back-to-back World Series champions get back-to-back Cy Young winner. It’s that simple.
We needn’t overthink this. The Dodgers are trying to become baseball’s first back-to-back-to-back World Series champion since the 1998-2000 Yankees, and they just added the reigning two-time Cy Young winner to a team that went into Saturday with the best record in baseball. Furthermore, it cost them nothing off their major-league roster. That’s an easy, easy A.
As good as Hope is (and he’s very good), he was L.A.’s fourth-best outfield prospect behind Josue De Paula, Eduardo Quintero, and Mike Sirota. Ryan was no higher than seventh or eighth on their rotation depth chart. Smith is a Single-A lottery ticket with a very big arm, but is also the kind of pitching prospect a World Series contender should never sweat giving up to get a Skubal type. All things considered, this trade package represents minimal pain for the Dodgers. They dealt from positions of depth across the board.
The Dodgers have a comfortable 10-game lead in the NL West. They’re adding Skubal for the five to seven starts they hope he will make for them in the postseason. What he does in August and September is almost irrelevant. Here is the club’s rotation depth chart:
- LHP Tarik Skubal
- RHP Yoshinobu Yamamoto
RHP Shohei Ohtani(currently unable to pitch due to knee and biceps injuries)LHP Blake Snell(rehabbing from elbow surgery)RHP Tyler Glasnow(out with back trouble)- LHP Justin Wrobleski
- RHP Roki Sasaki
- RHP Emmet Sheehan
- LHP Eric Lauer
The master plan likely has Skubal, Yamamoto, and Ohtani as the top three starters in the postseason, in whatever order. Glasnow and Snell are overqualified candidates to be the No. 4 starter. Wrobleski, Sasaki, and Sheehan have bullpen experience and can be impactful in that role. The Dodgers have depth and impact. It’s the game’s best rotation, at least on paper.
Detroit Tigers: C
The Tigers decided they would simply no longer like one of the best pitchers in baseball on their team.
In the end, the Skubal trade package looks like all the other rental ace trades over the last 20 years. The Tigers received one of the 25 or so best prospects in baseball (Hope), a strong second piece (Ryan), and a lottery ticket third piece (Smith). CC Sabathia (Cleveland to Brewers), Cliff Lee (Mariners to Rangers), Zack Greinke (Brewers to Angels), and David Price (Tigers to Blue Jays) were all traded for a very similar package. A top 25-ish prospect, a strong second piece, and a lottery ticket (or two).
Hope, 21, is tearing the cover off the ball in Double-A, slashing .293/.369/.530 with 23 home runs and 18 stolen bases. He’ll be ready to help the Tigers sometime next season, perhaps even on Opening Day. The long-term hope is that, well, Hope will join Max Clark, Dillon Dingler, and Kevin McGonigle to form the position player core of the next pennant-winning Tigers team.
Ryan, 28 next month, returned from Tommy John surgery earlier this year. He’s currently on the Triple-A injured list with a hamstring injury, but once he’s healthy, he’s a ready-made MLB starter who can step right into Detroit’s rotation. Ryan was so impressive in spring training that we made him one of our breakout picks for 2026. The only question is health (which is a pretty big question).
MLB Pipeline ranked Smith as the Dodgers’ No. 17 prospect before the trade and said he has “some of the best upside among Los Angeles’ starting pitching prospects.” The 22-year-old has a 4.36 ERA in 74 ⅓ innings split between two Single-A levels this year. Smith rounds out a strong trade package that aligns with the established precedent for a rental ace.
Why do the Tigers get a C then? Because they’re two games behind the third wild-card spot in the loss column, and they decided they would rather not employ one of the best pitchers in baseball the rest of the season. I understand the reasoning behind the trade. I do. You can’t let Skubal leave for nothing as a free agent. What’s the point of having all these wild-card spots and all this talk about competitive imbalance when teams behave like this?
History tells us the prospects aren’t going to amount to much. The best player — by far — to come out of the Sabathia, Lee, Greinke, and Price trades was Michael Brantley. The second best is probably Matthew Boyd. The Tigers put an inadequate roster around Skubal and that led to the trade. The return is fine. The reason it happened is a major bummer.
